


Borrowed Words

by doomed_spectacles



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Banter, Crowley Reads (Good Omens), Flirting, Kissing, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25714009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomed_spectacles/pseuds/doomed_spectacles
Summary: Tell me how you feel, but never use your own words. An old game played by even older enemies turns into something new.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38
Collections: Name That Author Round Six





	Borrowed Words

**Author's Note:**

> For the Name the Author game on Discord. Thank you for the excellent prompt!
> 
> There's a lot seething under the surface of these lines. If you'd like to scream with me about them, please please do! I'm limited in how much I can explain in the end notes, but know that some of these break my darn heart. Speak books to me, y'all.

“Where now?” Crowley sways with an unsteady click of boots on shining asphalt. His hands shove in pockets not made for them.

“Who now? When now?” [1] Aziraphale giggles. He holds his hands in front. Clasped but not tight enough. Taxi horns bay, singing in the damp night.

“Clever, you.” A snotty bob of red hair. “Aziraphale Gentry was drunk. Take that.” [2]

“Pfff.”

Silence. Six thousand years of words swallowed. They walk.

Invisible sparks fly from an accidental brush of hands. They keep walking. London doesn’t care.

“Once upon a time and a very good time it was.” [3] Aziraphale’s voice is prim. Playful. His wine-stained teeth hide behind pursed lips. Truths hide behind words written by other men.

“Bah.” Crowley blows out a cloudy breath from thin lips. “Call me Ishmael, then.” [4]

He gets an elbow to the ribs. A game between them, once started, is to be taken seriously.

“Fine. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.” [5]

Old beings cross old streets. An old doorway is reached but not breached. They stand at the threshold, still. They speak books to one another. Past one another. Never quite reaching.

“A play?” Aziraphale asks. He seeks the boundaries. Needs to define the rules of the game he started. “Are plays fair?”

“Demon.” Crowley’s eyebrows go up. He leans against the door. “Do demons play fair?”

A pause.

Not-quite rain not-quite falls on white hair. “You do with me,” Aziraphale says and means it.

A smudged mirror hides yellow eyes. 

“It was love at first sight.” [6] Crowley doesn’t have to specify. That’s some catch, that catch.

Aziraphale takes a sharp breath. 

He counters.

“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” [7]

“A story has no beginning or end,” Crowley says. Truth for truth. Still, neither speaks their own words. “Arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” [8]

Earnest eyebrows furrow over stormy blue eyes. “It was the age of foolishness.”

A smirk. “It was the age of wisdom.”

“The winter of despair.”

“The spring of hope,” Crowley says, his voice soft. He leans in. [9]

A kiss.

Their breaths mingle. Time doesn’t stop its march. The end looms, always.

“Proceed, angel, to procure my fall. And by the doom of death end woes and all.” Crowley holds his hand against a soft cheek. [10]

“Crowley,” he whispers. Aziraphale braces against a familiar door. The golden ring he wears clicks on the wood. “You always liked the funny ones.”

Two smiles. Another kiss.

“It was a pleasure to burn,” Crowley says, and it’s the wrong line. [11]

Both smiles fade.

Crowley pulls away.

“All is not lost,” Aziraphale says, his voice strong. “The unconquerable will.” [12]

“Not the first line, angel.” Crowley’s old smirk returns. “And a poem, not a book. Or a play.”

“I was never very good at following my own rules,” he says, and opens the door wide.

**Author's Note:**

> 1 "Where now? Who now? When now? Unquestioning. I, say I. Unbelieving. Questions, hypotheses, call them that. Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on." - The Unnameable, Samuel Beckett.  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 2 "Elmer Gantry was drunk. He was eloquently drunk, lovingly and pugnaciously drunk." - Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis. (Note: Elmer Gantry is a hypocritical, hedonist priest and this is Crowley being a jerk.)  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 3 "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo..." - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce.  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 4 "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world." - Moby Dick, Herman Melville.  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 5 "Before we proceed any further, hear me speak." - The Tragedy of Coriolanus, William Shakespeare.  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 6 "It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him." - Catch-22, Joseph Heller.  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 7 "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." - The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford.  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 8"A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which, to look ahead." - The End of the Affair, Graham Greene.  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 9 "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way..." - A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 10 "Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall; And by the doom of death end woes and all." - The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare.  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 11 "It was a pleasure to burn." - Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury.  
>  [return to text]
> 
> 12 "What though the field be lost?  
> All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,  
> And study of revenge, immortal hate,  
> And courage never to submit or yield:  
> And what is else not to be overcome?  
> That Glory never shall his wrath or might  
> Extort from me." - Paradise Lost, John Milton (spoken by Satan)  
>  [return to text]


End file.
